WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.279 I want to start today's deep dive with a bit 00:00:03.279 --> 00:00:05.200 of a contradiction. OK, I'm listening. Because 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:07.700 usually when you look at a map, a specific point, 00:00:07.839 --> 00:00:09.919 a set of coordinates, it represents one thing. 00:00:10.119 --> 00:00:11.960 Right, like a house or a bridge or whatever. 00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:14.599 Exactly. But we have a set of coordinates today 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:17.739 for you that seems to be having a bit of an identity 00:00:17.739 --> 00:00:20.500 crisis. And it's a crisis that actually tells 00:00:20.500 --> 00:00:23.699 us a lot about how history gets written. Yeah. 00:00:23.719 --> 00:00:26.239 So the coordinates are 45 degrees, 38 minutes 00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:30.300 north, and 23 degrees, 13 minutes east. Now, 00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:33.840 if you punch that into a GPS, you are going to 00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:37.520 land right in the middle of Hunadora County in 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:40.520 Romania. Beautiful area. It is. And if you look 00:00:40.520 --> 00:00:42.600 at the official database entry for this exact 00:00:42.600 --> 00:00:46.219 spot, the classification is, well, it's very 00:00:46.219 --> 00:00:50.060 clear. It says Feli Albe. It says Castra. Right. 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:51.859 Which is the Latin word for a military fort. 00:00:52.299 --> 00:00:54.479 So, case closed. We're doing a deep dive on a 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:56.479 Roman fort. Well, if you stop reading at the 00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:59.600 headline, sure, it's a Roman fort. But the minute 00:00:59.600 --> 00:01:02.399 you start, you know, pulling the actual files, 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:04.879 the papers written by the people who dug the 00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:07.819 place up, that label really starts to keel off. 00:01:07.980 --> 00:01:10.260 And that is exactly what we are unpacking today. 00:01:10.340 --> 00:01:13.780 We are looking at Faeil Al Bay. On paper, it's 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:16.340 a Roman auxiliary fort in the province of Dacia. 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:18.879 But in the footnotes, it's described as something 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.819 entirely different. A Dacian settlement. Yeah. 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:24.079 And we're going to figure out why those two things 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:27.519 are fighting for space on the exact same hill. 00:01:27.659 --> 00:01:30.379 And who exactly decided to put them there? Because 00:01:30.379 --> 00:01:32.739 this is really an exercise in reading between 00:01:32.739 --> 00:01:35.299 the lines of a database. We have a physical location, 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:37.620 we have administrative labels, and we have a 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:39.620 list of archaeologists. And some of the biggest 00:01:39.620 --> 00:01:41.980 names in the field, too. Absolutely. People who 00:01:41.980 --> 00:01:44.659 spent years arguing about what this place actually 00:01:44.659 --> 00:01:47.040 was. So let's ground ourselves first. We're in 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.680 Hanador County. For anyone listening who hasn't 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:52.420 backpacked through Romania, paint the picture. 00:01:53.530 --> 00:01:56.609 Why is this specific spot important in the grand 00:01:56.609 --> 00:01:59.209 scheme of ancient history in Transylvania? Well, 00:01:59.390 --> 00:02:01.409 you really have to understand the geography to 00:02:01.409 --> 00:02:03.849 understand the conflict here. Juanadora isn't 00:02:03.849 --> 00:02:06.709 just some random province. In the ancient world, 00:02:06.870 --> 00:02:09.030 this was the absolute heartland of the Dacian 00:02:09.030 --> 00:02:11.750 kingdom. This is where their capital was located. 00:02:12.090 --> 00:02:15.069 It's rugged, it's highly defensible, and crucially, 00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:18.270 it was incredibly rich in resources. We're talking 00:02:18.270 --> 00:02:21.800 gold iron. Gold iron timber. So when the Romans 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:23.780 showed up, this wasn't like marching into an 00:02:23.780 --> 00:02:26.300 open plain. They were walking into a massive 00:02:26.300 --> 00:02:28.780 fortress region. Right. A really hostile environment 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:31.759 for invading army. Exactly. And that is why the 00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:33.699 administrative layers we see in the source material 00:02:33.699 --> 00:02:36.939 are so interesting. The entry lists the province 00:02:36.939 --> 00:02:40.340 as Dacia, which is the broad term, right? Yeah. 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:42.659 But then it gets much more specific. It lists 00:02:42.659 --> 00:02:46.219 Dacia Apulensis and Dacia Superior. I wanted 00:02:46.219 --> 00:02:48.580 to ask you about that, actually, because to me, 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:51.490 that just looked like I don't know, bureaucratic 00:02:51.490 --> 00:02:54.810 noise. Like someone listing USA and then North 00:02:54.810 --> 00:02:57.990 America. Why do we need three different names 00:02:57.990 --> 00:03:00.430 for the exact same patch of dirt? Because the 00:03:00.430 --> 00:03:03.669 names represent time, not just space. Oh, interesting. 00:03:04.030 --> 00:03:07.590 Yeah. Rome didn't just conquer Dacia and leave 00:03:07.590 --> 00:03:10.810 it as is. They were constantly tweaking how they 00:03:10.810 --> 00:03:12.849 managed it because it was such a difficult frontier 00:03:12.849 --> 00:03:15.250 to hold onto. So it was an evolving situation. 00:03:15.610 --> 00:03:17.710 Exactly. Dacia superior was an administrative 00:03:17.710 --> 00:03:20.210 division that was created shortly after the initial 00:03:20.210 --> 00:03:23.229 conquest. But later on, things get reshuffled 00:03:23.229 --> 00:03:26.530 again and you get Dacia Appulensis. So finding 00:03:26.530 --> 00:03:29.800 fail LB. listed under both of those specific 00:03:29.800 --> 00:03:32.560 labels. That's not a typo in the database. No, 00:03:32.580 --> 00:03:34.699 not at all. It's essentially a timeline. It tells 00:03:34.699 --> 00:03:37.620 us that this site, whatever it was, was active 00:03:37.620 --> 00:03:39.979 and significant enough to be tracked through 00:03:39.979 --> 00:03:43.039 multiple major reorganizations of the Roman Empire. 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:46.520 It survived the red tape. If it was just a temporary 00:03:46.520 --> 00:03:48.599 marching camp, it wouldn't necessarily show up 00:03:48.599 --> 00:03:50.960 in these later distinct administrative layers. 00:03:51.099 --> 00:03:53.439 OK, so we have a site that persisted. It's sitting 00:03:53.439 --> 00:03:55.479 there in the mountains of Transylvania, just 00:03:55.479 --> 00:03:57.599 watching the empire change the map. around it. 00:03:57.900 --> 00:03:59.699 Yeah. But this brings us back to the main event. 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.479 The classification. Right. The big bold text 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:05.319 on the file says Roman Castra. Which is a facility 00:04:05.319 --> 00:04:08.219 for auxiliary troops. Meaning non -citizen soldiers 00:04:08.219 --> 00:04:10.120 fighting for Rome. Correct. But then I looked 00:04:10.120 --> 00:04:12.099 at the bibliography for this site. This is where 00:04:12.099 --> 00:04:14.500 I got really confused. There is a primary reference 00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:19.480 from 1969. It's by Hadrian Daikoviciu and Ioan 00:04:19.480 --> 00:04:22.519 Gladiario. Two absolute legends in the field. 00:04:22.620 --> 00:04:25.740 Right. And the title of their paper is in Romanian. 00:04:25.980 --> 00:04:30.000 But the translation is, well, it's pretty problematic 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:32.259 for the whole Roman fort theory. Feed the translation 00:04:32.259 --> 00:04:34.839 for us. It says considerations on the chronology 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:37.519 of the Dacian settlement at Faele Albi. And there 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:40.339 is the tension. Yeah. How do you get Roman fort 00:04:40.339 --> 00:04:43.060 as the main database category when the primary 00:04:43.060 --> 00:04:46.040 source material is literally titled Dacian settlement? 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.000 Are we looking at a mistake? Did someone file 00:04:49.000 --> 00:04:50.879 this wrong? We aren't looking at a mistake at 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:52.939 all. We are looking at stratigraphy. Meaning 00:04:52.939 --> 00:04:55.220 the layers of dirt? The layers of dirt, yes, 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:58.339 but also a layering of history. This is arguably 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:01.100 the most common problem in Roman archaeology, 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:03.639 specifically in a place like Dacia. You always 00:05:03.639 --> 00:05:06.639 have to ask the question, what was there before 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:08.579 the Romans arrived? And you mentioned earlier 00:05:08.579 --> 00:05:10.879 this was the Dacian heartland, so presumably 00:05:10.879 --> 00:05:14.439 people were already living there. Exactly. Phaeli 00:05:14.439 --> 00:05:17.240 Albi is incredibly close to the Doshan capital. 00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:21.170 It was a major terraced settlement. It had civilian 00:05:21.170 --> 00:05:23.870 habitation, likely distinct Dacian architecture, 00:05:24.250 --> 00:05:26.850 maybe even high religious significance. OK. When 00:05:26.850 --> 00:05:29.569 the Romans finally conquered the area, they didn't 00:05:29.569 --> 00:05:31.970 just bulldoze everything and leave it completely 00:05:31.970 --> 00:05:34.889 flat. They repurposed it. Often, yes. Or they 00:05:34.889 --> 00:05:37.269 built a military installation right on top of 00:05:37.269 --> 00:05:39.089 the burned ruins to ensure the locals didn't 00:05:39.089 --> 00:05:41.569 come back and try to rebuild. A show of force. 00:05:41.610 --> 00:05:44.509 Very much so. So when Dekoviciu and Gluderia 00:05:44.509 --> 00:05:47.009 are writing about the Dacian settlement in 1969, 00:05:47.019 --> 00:05:50.060 they are actively analyzing the indigenous roots 00:05:50.060 --> 00:05:52.860 of the site. The bottom layer. Right. But the 00:05:52.860 --> 00:05:55.660 database, which classifies it strictly as a castra, 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:59.220 is focusing almost entirely on the imperial overlay, 00:05:59.540 --> 00:06:01.579 the Roman military presence that came afterward. 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.040 It kind of feels like the database is burying 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:06.759 the lead a bit. By just calling it a Roman fort, 00:06:06.959 --> 00:06:09.040 it almost erases the people who were there first. 00:06:09.319 --> 00:06:11.699 That is a very modern way to look at it, and 00:06:11.699 --> 00:06:14.540 it's a completely valid point. Roman administrative 00:06:14.540 --> 00:06:16.720 records tend to dominate our view of history 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:18.920 because the Romans were the ones writing things 00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:21.360 down and building massive structures in stone. 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:23.920 Yeah, they left a very loud footprint. They did. 00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:27.680 But the actual artifacts pulled out of the ground 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:29.899 tells the story of the settlement that predates 00:06:29.899 --> 00:06:32.060 them. And this is where another specific book 00:06:32.060 --> 00:06:33.899 mentioned in the source material really comes 00:06:33.899 --> 00:06:37.600 in. It's called The Dation Stones Speak by Paul 00:06:37.600 --> 00:06:41.279 Lachlan McKendrick. Ah, yes, a classic published 00:06:41.279 --> 00:06:45.519 in 1975. The title alone, The Dation Stones Speak, 00:06:46.079 --> 00:06:48.079 it seems to take a definitive side in this argument. 00:06:48.519 --> 00:06:51.120 It's not called The Roman Forts Speak. That's 00:06:51.120 --> 00:06:53.480 a great point. McKendrick was trying to synthesize 00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:56.319 the complex archaeology of Romania for an English 00:06:56.319 --> 00:06:58.939 -speaking audience. He was very interested in 00:06:58.939 --> 00:07:01.579 that persistence of local culture. So he wasn't 00:07:01.579 --> 00:07:04.060 just interested in the Conquers? No. He wasn't 00:07:04.060 --> 00:07:06.920 just looking at standard Roman walls. He was 00:07:06.920 --> 00:07:09.800 looking at how the Dacian identity survived or 00:07:09.800 --> 00:07:13.019 mutated under Roman rule. So Fae Ali Albi is 00:07:13.019 --> 00:07:15.600 practically the poster child. for his entire 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:17.660 book. It's a place where you can point to the 00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:20.259 map and say, here is the native settlement and 00:07:20.259 --> 00:07:22.420 here is the imperial fort that sat right on top 00:07:22.420 --> 00:07:24.860 of it. And that duality is exactly why those 00:07:24.860 --> 00:07:27.860 coordinates, 45 degrees, 38 minutes north, 23 00:07:27.860 --> 00:07:30.980 degrees, 13 minutes east, are so heavy with meaning. 00:07:31.259 --> 00:07:33.740 It's not just a spot on a map. No, it's a crash 00:07:33.740 --> 00:07:36.360 site between two major civilizations. I want 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:38.319 to pivot a little bit to the people who are actually 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:40.500 doing the digging. The source material lists 00:07:40.500 --> 00:07:43.339 a lot of names. I mean, we have Alexandra Volpe, 00:07:43.800 --> 00:07:47.180 Ion Glideriu, I own PISO. Hadrian Daikoviciu, 00:07:47.259 --> 00:07:51.500 A. Rusu, Eugen Yaroslavsky, M. Barbalescu, and 00:07:51.500 --> 00:07:53.899 T. Sorosianou. It feels like a roll call. It's 00:07:53.899 --> 00:07:56.000 not just a roll call, though. It's a lineage. 00:07:56.259 --> 00:07:58.459 These aren't just random researchers who spent 00:07:58.459 --> 00:08:01.019 a weekend in the dirt. If you study Roman Dacia, 00:08:01.100 --> 00:08:03.560 these are the absolute titans of the field. Who 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:05.540 stands out to you the most from that list? Yeah. 00:08:05.660 --> 00:08:07.860 Because the names Hadrian Daikoviciu and Ioan 00:08:07.860 --> 00:08:10.060 Gladeriu just keep popping up in the references. 00:08:10.500 --> 00:08:12.759 They wrote that 1969 paper we were just talking 00:08:12.759 --> 00:08:17.050 about. Hadrian Daikoviciu is a tower. His father, 00:08:17.370 --> 00:08:20.189 Constantin Daicovici, was also a massive figure 00:08:20.189 --> 00:08:23.670 in Romanian archaeology. Together, they practically 00:08:23.670 --> 00:08:26.529 defined the modern study of the Dussian fortresses. 00:08:26.529 --> 00:08:29.269 Oh, wow. So when you see Hadrian Daicovici's 00:08:29.269 --> 00:08:32.250 name attached to Fiele Alba, it signals immediately 00:08:32.250 --> 00:08:34.549 that this site was considered a top priority. 00:08:34.950 --> 00:08:37.470 Why is that? What makes it such a priority for 00:08:37.470 --> 00:08:40.360 someone of his stature? Because of that exact 00:08:40.360 --> 00:08:42.720 settlement versus fort question we've been discussing, 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:45.779 Daikoviciu was deeply invested in understanding 00:08:45.779 --> 00:08:48.179 the Dacian state on its own terms. He wasn't 00:08:48.179 --> 00:08:50.840 just hunting for Roman eagles and Latin inscriptions. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:53.080 He wanted the local story. He wanted to know 00:08:53.080 --> 00:08:55.279 how the Dacian society functioned before it was 00:08:55.279 --> 00:08:58.039 dismantled. So for him to focus so heavily on 00:08:58.039 --> 00:09:00.519 Fili Albi suggests he saw it as a key piece of 00:09:00.519 --> 00:09:03.120 the puzzle regarding the Dacian defensive network, 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:05.360 not just another Roman outpost. And what about 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:07.779 the Lodario? Iowa and Gloudera was brilliant 00:09:07.779 --> 00:09:09.820 at analyzing the architecture and the complex 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:11.899 trade networks of the region when they teamed 00:09:11.899 --> 00:09:15.299 up for that 1969 paper in Acta Musei Napotensis. 00:09:15.559 --> 00:09:19.179 Let's pause on that. Acta Musei Napotensis. That's 00:09:19.179 --> 00:09:21.120 the specific journal listed in the footnotes, 00:09:21.299 --> 00:09:24.100 right? Volume six. Yes. And this is vital context 00:09:24.100 --> 00:09:26.039 for the listener. We are talking about the late 00:09:26.039 --> 00:09:29.580 1960s. This site was being actively analyzed 00:09:29.580 --> 00:09:32.539 and debated during a very specific era. Right. 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:34.500 And the research is coming out in this specific 00:09:34.500 --> 00:09:37.320 academic volume, showing that the scholarly community 00:09:37.320 --> 00:09:40.639 was intensely focused on unraveling the timeline 00:09:40.639 --> 00:09:43.120 of this one location. It's fascinating because 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:45.500 it highlights this real tension. We have the 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:48.419 dry Western classification in the database. calling 00:09:48.419 --> 00:09:51.840 it a Roman fort. But then we have the 1969 paper 00:09:51.840 --> 00:09:53.980 diving deep into the chronology of the Dacian 00:09:53.980 --> 00:09:56.320 settlement. Exactly. It really emphasizes how 00:09:56.320 --> 00:09:58.200 you just can't read the summary of a historical 00:09:58.200 --> 00:10:00.100 site and walk away thinking, you know, the whole 00:10:00.100 --> 00:10:02.080 story. You have to look at who is writing the 00:10:02.080 --> 00:10:04.059 papers and when they are writing them. Absolutely. 00:10:04.200 --> 00:10:05.759 Speaking of when, let's talk about the timeline 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:08.259 of the sources themselves. The Dykevichy and 00:10:08.259 --> 00:10:10.600 Glodaria paper in Acta Musei and Opus Sensis 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:14.279 is from 1969. The McKendrick book from the University 00:10:14.279 --> 00:10:17.559 of North Carolina Press is from 1975. That's 00:10:17.559 --> 00:10:19.919 a six -year gap. Which, in the pre -internet 00:10:19.919 --> 00:10:22.299 era, is actually pretty fast for international 00:10:22.299 --> 00:10:24.740 academic translation and synthesis. It is, but 00:10:24.740 --> 00:10:27.379 it also highlights a massive barrier in how history 00:10:27.379 --> 00:10:29.879 gets shared, doesn't it? If I'm an archaeology 00:10:29.879 --> 00:10:33.100 student in the U .S. in 1970, I have absolutely 00:10:33.100 --> 00:10:36.139 no idea this conversation about Phalaeolbe is 00:10:36.139 --> 00:10:39.360 even happening, unless I can read Romanian. and 00:10:39.360 --> 00:10:42.220 somehow have a subscription to Acta Musaenopisensis? 00:10:42.340 --> 00:10:45.379 That is spot on. And that is exactly why McKendrick 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:48.320 acts as the vital bridge here. He reads the reports. 00:10:48.480 --> 00:10:51.100 He understands the significance of what Daikoviciu 00:10:51.100 --> 00:10:54.120 and Gliderio are arguing. And he brings that 00:10:54.120 --> 00:10:56.120 nuanced knowledge back to the English speaking 00:10:56.120 --> 00:10:58.519 world through the University of North Carolina 00:10:58.519 --> 00:11:01.860 Press. So without McKendrick publishing in 1975, 00:11:02.179 --> 00:11:04.240 Faley Albee might just remain a simple Roman 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:06.799 Ford in English literature indefinitely. It's 00:11:06.799 --> 00:11:09.159 very likely. McKendrick's work allowed international 00:11:09.159 --> 00:11:11.419 audiences to see the Dacian stones underneath 00:11:11.419 --> 00:11:14.039 the Roman administration. It's a great reminder 00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:16.100 that archaeological knowledge travels slowly 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:18.539 across language barriers, and it often risks 00:11:18.539 --> 00:11:21.399 getting simplified in transit. Yeah, so if we 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:23.509 look at the source text we have today... for 00:11:23.509 --> 00:11:26.230 this deep dive, this short entry with just some 00:11:26.230 --> 00:11:28.129 coordinates, a couple of administrative tags 00:11:28.129 --> 00:11:31.330 and a few references. It's really a compression 00:11:31.330 --> 00:11:33.370 of all that immense effort. I like to think of 00:11:33.370 --> 00:11:36.450 it as a zip file of history. You have the coordinates, 00:11:36.490 --> 00:11:39.950 which are the physical reality. You have the 00:11:39.950 --> 00:11:42.190 administrative tags like Decius Superior and 00:11:42.190 --> 00:11:44.690 Deci Apulensis, which represent the Roman bureaucracy. 00:11:45.289 --> 00:11:47.690 And then you have the bibliography, which is 00:11:47.690 --> 00:11:51.110 the modern academic struggle to define what actually 00:11:51.110 --> 00:11:52.870 happened there. And the struggle itself. seems 00:11:52.870 --> 00:11:55.909 to be the main point. It's not really about winning 00:11:55.909 --> 00:11:58.230 the argument of whether it's a fort or a town. 00:11:58.610 --> 00:12:00.570 It's about acknowledging that for the people 00:12:00.570 --> 00:12:03.769 who actually lived there, it was a layered reality. 00:12:03.850 --> 00:12:05.889 It was a reality that fundamentally changed. 00:12:06.169 --> 00:12:08.509 Imagine living in Fele Albi right before the 00:12:08.509 --> 00:12:11.190 Roman conquest. It's a thriving Dacian settlement. 00:12:11.509 --> 00:12:13.570 You have your home, your pottery, your daily 00:12:13.570 --> 00:12:16.129 routine. And then just a few years later, after 00:12:16.129 --> 00:12:19.830 the war, it's a Roman auxiliary castra. It's 00:12:19.830 --> 00:12:22.029 the exact same coordinates, the exact same sun. 00:12:21.799 --> 00:12:24.039 rise over the mountains, but it is a completely 00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:26.620 different world. The fort and the settlement 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.360 aren't contradictory at all. They are just sequential 00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:32.139 chapters in the exact same book. That is a really 00:12:32.139 --> 00:12:34.820 haunting way to put it. The coordinates don't 00:12:34.820 --> 00:12:37.620 move, but the entire world changes around them. 00:12:38.019 --> 00:12:40.779 And the archaeologists we listed, Volpe, Piso, 00:12:41.080 --> 00:12:45.259 Rusu, Aeroslavski, Barbulescu, Sorosianu, Daikovichu, 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:48.659 Ladaryu, they are all just trying to read those 00:12:48.659 --> 00:12:50.659 chapters out of the dirt. It really makes me 00:12:50.659 --> 00:12:53.059 wonder about all the other short stubs or brief 00:12:53.059 --> 00:12:55.820 entries in these historical databases. You know, 00:12:55.820 --> 00:12:57.480 you see a name and a coordinate and you just 00:12:57.480 --> 00:12:59.840 scroll past it. But every single one of them 00:12:59.840 --> 00:13:02.679 probably has a dedicated team of scholars who 00:13:02.679 --> 00:13:04.659 spent a decade of their life trying to figure 00:13:04.659 --> 00:13:06.840 out what was really there. There are no boring 00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:08.919 archaeological sites. There are only sites we 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:10.679 haven't bothered to read the footnotes for yet. 00:13:11.019 --> 00:13:12.940 I think that's the perfect takeaway for today. 00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:16.740 The tag Dacia Superior sounds incredibly dry 00:13:16.740 --> 00:13:19.320 at first glance, but it represents the logistics 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:22.720 of a massive empire. The names in the bibliography 00:13:22.720 --> 00:13:25.480 sound like just another academic citation, but 00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:28.000 they represent a rigorous, decades -long effort 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.379 to uncover a localized history. And Fayal Albi 00:13:31.379 --> 00:13:34.059 sounds like just another dot on a map. but it's 00:13:34.059 --> 00:13:36.860 a literal and figurative battlefield of identity. 00:13:37.059 --> 00:13:38.879 And it's all just sitting there at 45 degrees, 00:13:39.080 --> 00:13:42.379 38 minutes north, 23 degrees, 13 minutes east, 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:45.220 waiting for someone to notice the details. Well, 00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:47.980 we noticed today. We did. And it leaves me with 00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:50.759 one final thought for you as we wrap up. If a 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:53.240 site listed as a simple fort with just some coordinates 00:13:53.240 --> 00:13:55.779 and a lift of names holds this much hidden conflict, 00:13:56.350 --> 00:13:58.809 How much more history is sitting right now in 00:13:58.809 --> 00:14:01.210 untranslated footnotes, just waiting for someone 00:14:01.210 --> 00:14:03.350 to finally read the title of a 50 -year -old 00:14:03.350 --> 00:14:05.570 research paper? Always check the stratigraphy 00:14:05.570 --> 00:14:07.370 of your sources. Thanks for taking this deep 00:14:07.370 --> 00:14:08.789 dive with us. Until next time.